A taxiing system installed on an aircraft makes it possible to move the aircraft during the taxiing phases autonomously, that is to say avoiding the use of the main engines of the aircraft.
In an electric taxiing system, wheels borne by one or more landing gears are driven in rotation, during the taxiing phases, by actuators comprising electric motors.
In the taxiing phases of an aircraft using such a taxiing system, the aircraft is therefore moved by the landing gear or gears bearing the wheels driven in rotation by the taxiing system. The landing gears are therefore subjected to loads opposing the loads they are normally subjected to when it is the aircraft which, by virtue of the main engines, pulls the landing gears.
The loads to which the landing gears are subjected during the taxiing phases generate mechanical stresses (for example, flexural or torsional stresses), but also thermal stresses, on mechanical parts of the taxiing system and, more generally, on mechanical parts of the landing gears. The rods slidingly mounted in the caissons of the landing gears are thus particularly affected by the effects of these mechanical and thermal stresses.
Because of these mechanical and thermal stresses, the mechanical parts of the taxiing system and of the landing gears are subjected to a fatigue which reduces the life of said mechanical parts.